


equinox

by arsenicjay



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dom submits to another Dom, Forbidden/Secret Relationships, Hand & Finger Kink, M/M, Unwanted Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 01:14:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18458447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicjay/pseuds/arsenicjay
Summary: “I found you at the edges of the valley,” Morozko says, when the silence stretches too long. “A nest of winter birds alerted me to a strange melt in the ice. Heat, they said, melting the snowfall into a unfamiliar patch of greenery.”Kupalo shot him a glare. “And you brought me here? Into aglacier?”“If you’d rather be left on the tundra plains, by all means. You’re free to go.”





	equinox

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elrhiarhodan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/gifts).



> Dear recipient, I hope you enjoy! I took your prompts of Summer Deity / Winter Deity and broadly speaking Porn with Feels (and a few other kinks thrown in).

Kupalo wakes to the gentle _plit-plat_ of water dripping down onto stone.

When he opens his eyes, the first thing that registers is a faint, watery blue. He turns his head, blinking slowly to clear the drowsiness that clings to his thoughts.

A quiet cave made of ice meets his gaze. Light filters through the transparent ceiling, diffusing a tremulous blue glow around the small cavern. Shadows flicker overhead, as though there’s moving water above, and around him the icy walls gleam wetly.

_Plit. Plat._

Where is he? Moreover, how did he even get here?

He sits up slowly from the stone table, wincing at the ache of his body. The last thing he remembers is the whisper of autumn on the evening breeze, leaves beginning to dry and curl with the turn of the seasons. It had still been pleasant then, afternoons warmed by syrupy sunlight as he wandered through a nearby forest, listening to the birdsong. Now, the air is cold, the surrounding air chilled to an almost unbearable temperature, and Kupalo feels his heart sink.

It's far too early for him to take form again.

Glancing around, his breath puffs out in front of him like steam. With how cold the cavern is, he's likely the reason for the melting ice. Even now, water continues to drip from above, trickling down the inner walls. He’s woken inside of a glacier perhaps, the freezing innards of a frozen wasteland.

_Plit. Plat._

“You’re awake.”

Kupalo twists around at the sound. From the glimmering darkness of the cave, a tall figure emerges. If it weren’t for the way they approached with steady, purposeful steps, long cloak dragging along the stone floor, Kupalo would have thought he were looking at a statue carved from ice.

Then Morozko steps into a dim light-shaft and frowns, head tilted with disapproval. “You need to return,” he says, voice smooth and cold.

A pregnant pause, as Kupalo stares in disbelief. Pale hair, shot through with grey like the fur of a snow leopard, and skin so translucent it almost melds into the shade of the glacier walls around them. It’s not often that he sees Morozko at the peak of his power, in all the glory of his silent, freezing realm.

Well, it’s not often he sees Morozko at all, really.

“That’s the greeting I receive?” Kupalo asks, a moment later. He rubs at his face, feeling how cold his cheeks are. There’s a tiredness in his body he’s only just beginning to feel. “More than several hundred years apart, and that’s all you have to say to me?”

Morozko’s voice is clipped and measured. “I have nothing to say, because you shouldn’t be here.”

Kupalo resists the urge to roll his eyes. As serious and blunt as ever. Typical. He swings his legs over the edge of the table, hiding the wince as his bare thighs land on stone. The beads woven into his hair clink together with the motion, dried red berries from last year’s harvest.

There is nothing about him suited to this season. Nothing at all. Not his clothes—light linen that drapes over his shoulders for modesty more than coverage—not his body, not his core _essence_. Each breath in here cools his core temperature, stealing away his internal energy faster than he’d like. All of the heat he’d gathered through his season, the golden warmth of the wheat fields, the humidity of the midday sun on a coursing, roaring river. The energy that’s supposed to sustain him until the next year, the way the earth retains heat long into the night, as he sleeps the cooler months away in the aether somewhere between concept and reality.

“I found you at the edges of the valley,” Morozko says, when the silence stretches too long. “A nest of winter birds alerted me to a strange melt in the ice. Heat, they said, melting the snowfall into a unfamiliar patch of greenery.”

Kupalo shot him a glare. “And you brought me here? Into a _glacier_?”

“If you’d rather be left on the tundra plains, by all means. You’re free to go.”

Biting back the scowl, Kupalo doesn’t meet Morozko’s gaze. From what little he knows of icy habitats, Morozko is right. At least here, there’s marginal protection from the elements.

Kupalo examines his hands. His skin, usually tanned dark and sun-kissed with warmth from long days stretched out in the sun, has taken on an unpleasant pallor. And there’s a weakness in his core essence, a vulnerability that he’s not accustomed to. It makes him nervous. There’s no heat in the nearby surroundings that he can sense, not with the molten layers of the earth so far beneath the surface. Nothing he can leech for the energy he needs to flee for warmer corners of the land.

If anyone else had found him, if it had been Rugievit, with his brittle temper and ravenous hunger for all things living; or Lada, with her fervour and nervous chaotic energy, reborn into youth with every cycle—he’d hold his tongue and find his own way out.

But Morozko is as old as him. As steadfast and patient as the day they had met, on the first turning of the world. And they’re more familiar with each other than their namesake seasons would imply.

A faint pang runs through Kupalo; surely Morozko wouldn’t begrudge him a moment of weakness. “I don’t…believe I’m in a position to leave,” he admits, voice low.

It takes a small effort for him to stand, testing his own weight and ignoring how the cold seeps through the soles of his feet. So busy concentrating on staying upright, thoughts fluttering between his options—there aren’t many, really—that he doesn’t notice Morozko drift closer to him.

Not until he feels unexpected touch to his wrist. Frost curls gently over his skin from where Morozko grips him, a delicate pattern of ice slivers that spread down his arm from the point of contact. It's fascinating, and for a moment, Kupalo is too entranced by the intricate whorls to notice how the ice lingers, unmelting.

“You don’t have any strength,” Morozko observes. His tone is dispassionate, almost cold, but Kupalo doesn’t miss the note of concern as he releases his hold. “You won’t even last the journey to the nearest geyser, just south of here.”

Kupalo glances down at his arm. Already, the ice is receding. “I need warmth,” he says, more to himself than to Morozko.

“That much is obvious,” Morozko snorts. But he sounds distracted, and when Kupalo looks up, he finds Morozko staring at his own hand, the one he'd used to touch him, fingers flexing. “Do you have any solutions you would propose?”

How many years has it been since they last touched, Kupalo wonders. Quiet attraction had brought them together, several millennia ago. A deep-seated curiosity for the entity so opposite to himself. Strange he used to think, that he only saw the fleeting memories of Morozko. The lingering chill found in melted spring puddles, the cold shadows in dark caves that sunlight would never touch. The glaciers that would break off into ice floes and drift onto his rocky shores as though to remind him that there existed a counterpart to everything he was.

What had bloomed between them was never meant to be. Those surreptitious entanglements at the boundaries of their seasons, when Rugievit or Lada were distracted with the joys of their own seasons. Two powerful beings in their own right; coming together was inevitable, or so Kupalo thought.

He was, after all, a god of brightness and pursuit of all things that delighted him, of indulgence and optimism and the luxury of a harvest. Unfortunately for him, Morozko was a god of reservation, the cool and steady thrum of dormancy beneath a blanket of cold, and the long moment of death. Coming apart was inevitable too, according to him.

“Several, actually,” Kupalo offers. “None of which you will like.”

Morozko narrows his eyes. “Tell me.”

“I stay in this glacier until Lada returns to the aether, and the following season will be a weak one. The harvest will be small, the sun less warm against the skin.” Kupalo muses. “Or, perhaps you can help warm me.”

“Those are two options.” Morozko looks unimpressed. “Neither of which are preferable. I am the god of frost and snow, and you’re asking me to warm you?”

“Yes,” Kupalo replies, without hesitation. Perhaps he’s taking advantage, or perhaps there’s still some of that Kupalo frivolity in him, because he reaches out to catch Morozko’s hand in his. “You used to do it so well, after all.”

“This is your solution,” Morozko repeats. He jerks his hand back, as though attempting to pull it free, but Kupalo doesn’t let go. Tightens his grip instead, until the coolness of Morozko’s skin numbs his palm. “You cannot be serious—”

Morozko cuts himself off in obvious frustration. But even that is a balm to Kupalo, igniting a tiny spark of hope. He threads their fingers together, thumbing over the smoothness of Morozko’s palms. His long, elegant fingers are as cool to the touch as he remembers.

“Lada is the fickle one,” Kupalo remarks, distracted, and Morozko narrows his eyes.

“I will only cool you further.” Morozko doesn't make a second effort to pull away, letting Kupalo turn his hand over to trace the ridge of his knuckles. “You are not in a position to do anything so reckless, not the way we used to. You don’t know what you are asking for—don't be so foolish.”

It makes Kupalo want to laugh. He must be uncomfortably warm to Morozko, with the way his internal core is still hot enough to continue melting the ice around them. The sound of dripping water hasn't slowed. If he stays in this glacier until spring, he may very well warm it to slush by the time Lada shakes him awake and fusses over his sleepiness.

“And you know better, do you?” Kupalo says, amused. “Perhaps you shouldn't be so stubborn, and let the god of summer and fertility worry about the warming.”

“If you hadn't been unconscious when I found you, I would suspect this were all contrived to gain my attention.”

“Maybe it was—”

Morozko’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly. “Then you are acting like a young spirit, barely older than several turns of the century. Reckless and foolish, when I've told you so many times—”

Kupalo wants to groan outloud, irritation snapping at his heels and only made worse by his bone-deep weariness. “You're speaking out of turn,” he says instead, barely keeping the annoyance from his voice. “What I choose to do or do not do isn't under your control, I am _not_ one of your worshippers—”

But Morozko moves as Kupalo speaks, pressing forward without so much as being led into close quarters, and the abruptness makes him falter for a split second. Kupalo steps back without thinking, until his knees hit the edge of the stone table and he falls back with a thump. Almost immediately, Morozko is climbing over him, arms coming down to bracket him. For a long pause, Kupalo doesn’t breathe.

“You say one thing, then say another.” Morozko’s voice is low. “You think of me, but then you cease to care about what I think, and what I want. You warm to me, then tell me I mean little to you in less than a few words. Which is it then? You cannot have both.”

The heavy implication doesn’t slip past him, and Kupalo closes his eyes to the thrum of tension inside him. “We are gods. There is no right or wrong, that we don't decide—”

“There is a higher order, beyond us. There are some things in the universe that simply cannot meet, cannot _be_.”

“Well, perhaps,” Kupalo cuts in. He opens his eyes, staring up at Morozko. “Perhaps I’ve missed you.”

And there, the first crack to Morozko’s steady countenance. He exhales, sending a cloud of frost into the air. “Will you even be able to stand my touch?”

Kupalo’s breath catches as an elegant hand reaches for him and strokes down his chest. Nudges apart the edges of the thin shirt that affords him meagre protection from the iciness of the room, and traces with a ghosting touch. Each fingertip leaves cold trail along his skin, like icy water trickling down his chest, and Kupalo shudders at the sensation.

It's not as if there isn't a thread of truth to Morozko’s words. How must Kupalo look with the muted aura he now radiates? None of the brightness he usually inhabits, none of the warmth that he emanates in the peak of his season. Here, he is truly within Morozko’s domain, with little strength of his own: a small, smouldering furnace in the face of a continent of snow and ice.

But slowly, slowly, he feels himself warm—the molten core within him flaring to life like embers after a firestorm. A shift has him spreading his legs to accommodate Morozko’s form, the furs of his cloak tickling his bare thighs.

“Keep going,” he urges, as Morozko's hand pauses at the jut of his hips.

“You will tell me...” Morozko begins. A strange emotion flashes across his expression, before it smooths out again. “If this becomes too much for you. I will not—do not want to—”

Kupalo can’t help the faint noise that escapes his lips when Morozko dips a cool hand between his skin and the fabric of his pants. A sharp breath escapes him next, as those fingers make contact with the heated skin of his cock. But the touch is hesitant, halting. As if Morozko has forgotten the lay of his body.

So Kupalo slings his arms around Morozko's shoulders, locking them together before he has time to react. He yanks downward, hard enough that Morozko grunts as he braces himself against the stone table with his other hand. In the same motion, Kupalo rocks his hips up until that loose grip tightens reflexively. Pleasure skitters up his spine in a satisfying reward.

“Impatient,” comes the thinly veiled disapproval.

But the stroking continues, and under Morozko’s ministrations Kupalo hardens rapidly. Still, Kupalo finds it within himself to laugh. “What did you expect? Touching me so tentatively and slowly, as if I were virgin sacrifice instead of the god of fertility?”

Morozko leans down to press his lips to Kupalo's neck. The contact feels like ice on his skin, like a small rebuke. “A little obedience, perhaps, given your current situation.”

Kupalo laughs again; if it comes a little breathlessly, neither of them comment on it. “So bold of you to ask for my submission, when I cannot possibly be consecrated to you. I'm not one of your human worshippers, dependent on your mercy and grace. Would you submit to me, if our positions were reversed?”

The next stroke of Morozko’s hand is harsher, thumb digging into the slit of Kupalo’s cock before soothing the sharp bite of sensation away. Kupalo opens his mouth with a groan. His hips jerk of their own volition this time.

“Unlike you, I wouldn’t be caught in such a position. And if I were, I would be far better behaved, more grateful, to someone who is helping me.”

“You are a god that asks the impossible then,” Kupalo counters. “For you haven’t even given me any instruction to follow.”

And Morozko stills at that, one brow rising. He sits up, pulling his hands away and shifting his centre of gravity until he leans over Kupalo like a shadow. His body blocks out the thin light of the ceiling. For a moment, he stares down at Kupalo with an almost searching gaze. Then, slowly, with every intention of being seen, he takes hold of Kupalo's wrists and draws them up over his head.

Presses them against the table, as if he could anchor them there by will alone.

“Keep them there, and let us see then,” he murmurs, voice rough. “How well you listen.”

Kupalo's mouth is dry. The stretch of his arms, coolness of the stone seeping into his bare skin—all of it is a distraction to the sudden, unexpected heat in Morozko's eyes. A strange mix of emotions tangle up within him. Cautiousness and a sense of nakedness, even though Morozko has done little more than idly push aside his clothes; excitement and anticipation that coils deeper and deeper inside of him, and fans the embers in his gut.

“Is that a challenge?” he finally asks, when Morozko continues to watch him.

A small smile, the first warmth he's seen Morozko express. “That's up to you, is it not?”

And with that, Morozko unbuttons Kupalo's shirt and tugs at the laces of his pants. Pulls them out of the way, as Kupalo struggles to remember to keep his hands over his head. Resisting the urge to touch is difficult. Cruel almost, that he's spent so long _without_ , only to have it denied again when Morozko is within reach. So close, only to be forbidden by the very being he desires. He huffs out a breath when he realises his predicament.

“If this is your attempt to teach me a lesson—”

Morozko’s reply comes smoothly. “I would never presume to teach another god a lesson.”

The cool touch returns to his cock, and Kupalo stifles his response. He's no less hard than he was five minutes ago, and this time he feels a welcomed slick in Morozko's palm. “I thought gods were bound to the truth,” he remarks, as pleasure soaks through him again.

“Did you not say repeatedly that you are not one of my worshippers? What duty do I owe you, a foreign god encroaching on my territory?”

Kupalo nearly sits up in indignation, nearly tears his hands away from where Morozko had pinned them down. “You, calling _me_ a foreign god? Encroaching on your territory? As if you haven’t invited me here so many times before—”

“You shouldn’t be awake,” Morozko reminds him, voice hardening. “You should be asleep, slumbering in the ever-burning core of a volcano, or in the depths of a thermal vent at the bottom of the ocean. And yet you are here, risking the entire worldly cycle for your own desires. Don’t deny it—what force can wake a god when he’s not already willing himself awake?”

For a moment, Kupalo stares. Holds Morozko’s gaze as his emotions churn within him. Sometimes he forgets just how _stubborn_ the frost can be. How distant and forlorn it is, to love a being that inhabits the coldest parts of life. Slowly, slowly, Kupalo lowers his head back against the stone.

“It seems you afford little to your ex-lovers too,” he says, eventually. It comes out angry, more bitter and quiet than he wants.

So lost in his own thoughts, Kupalo doesn’t notice the way Morozko shifts. Tilts his hips up and presses his legs back against him, until he’s pressing his own weight down over Kupalo. Suddenly, they’re close—so close that Morozko must see the way Kupalo’s eyes widen, barely inches from his own. His body protests the new strain, the uncomfortable stretch of his muscles. He feels open again, laid bare and vulnerable with the way his thighs are forced wide around Morozko’s waist.

There’s nowhere to hide, this close and Kupalo draws a shaky breath before he can stop himself.

“I know you may not believe me,” Morozko murmurs in a voice barely audible. “But please understand this is not easy for me. You ask for so much. So much, Kupalo. As you always have done, as you are wont to do with a nature like yours. And I have yielded, many times. Just this once...”

If Kupalo lifts his head, crosses the scant distance between them, he could kiss Morozko. Kiss him hard and taste the icy chill of winter on his lips, steal the northern breeze from his lungs. But in the same way he hasn’t moved his hands, he doesn’t kiss Morozko.

“Warm me, then,” he says instead. He swallows around the longing in his throat and continues, voice rough with something he doesn’t want to linger on. “I yield. Have me as you will, and warm me.”

Morozko lets go of Kupalo’s cock, fingers drifting down lower to brush against Kupalo’s entrance. One finger eases inside, and Kupalo can't help the faint noise that escapes him. Overhead, his hands scrabble for something to hold onto, twisting until he can grab onto the edge of the stone table. The sensation of Morozko inside of him is shocking, sends a pulse of discomfort through him as his core essence protests the fierce cold. But Morozko's finger doesn't stop, doesn't slow, just slides in deeper and deeper until Kupalo draws in a shuddering breath.

“Does it hurt you?” Morozko asks, as he waits for Kupalo to adjust and gather his scattered thoughts. For a split second, uncertainty enters his voice. “Perhaps because you are so weakened—”

“No, no—it’s—” Kupalo interrupts, when he feels Morozko begin to withdraw. He feels like he’s on the verge of babbling. “It does not hurt, it doesn’t—I just. A moment, one moment—”

It's not a lie. Warmth surges through him, a heady mix of arousal and emotion all at once. The sensation doubles when Morozko takes hold of his cock again, with his other hand.

How strange it feels, to submit himself to the cold. As willing as his conscious mind is, his core essence is another matter altogether. His chest feels like it's expanding with the heat, his inner core flaring with instinctive response to the challenge of that cold finger inside him. The urge to surge up and reverse their positions, to burst to life the way a flame ignites and consumes all around it—Kupalo shoves it down into his lower stomach and lets it fuel the arousal building rapidly within him.

“Keep going,” he says without thinking, grip on the stone table tightening. “Keep—”

The press of another finger cuts his voice off in a strangled noise. A second finger joins the first, sliding into the tightness of his body, and he doesn't notice the whine that escapes his throat until it's echoing around the cavern.

There’s no denying how unused to this he is; it’s obvious in the tremble of his thighs around Morozko’s waist, the way his knuckles must be white as they dig the table’s edge. The burning stretch only intensifies with the growing heat of his core.

His fingers catch on an odd roughness. They trace a stuttered pattern along the edge of the table, running over the carved edges of stone. Recognition dawns on him, as easily as Morozko’s third finger sliding home—the glyphs of an old, forgotten language.

“You’re going to fuck me on your sacred altar?” Kupalo gasps, unable to keep the indignance from his voice even as Morozko’s fingers hit something pleasurable inside him. He clenches down on reflex, and the burning heat flares so hot and fierce that he bites down on another loud groan. “So, when I said virgin sacrifice—”

“I promise that was not my intention when I brought you here,” comes the apologetic reply.

Morozko’s voice is more strained now, breaths coming shorter and panted in between his words. His head bows, pale hair falling like a curtain over his face, as if concentrating solely on preparing Kupalo’s body.

The undivided attention, the thought of being overpowered and stretched out like an offering with all the devotion of a consecrated worshipper—it’s like a bellows to the fire in Kupalo’s gut. Another crook of Morozko’s fingers and Kupalo shuts his eyes as dizziness flows over him. He can barely hear the sound of the cavern around him now, the growing _plit-plat_.

Really, he barely cares.

A shift behind him, then a cold hand pushes his chest down in counterpoint to the steady press of Morozko’s cock against his entrance. That weight is all that anchors him as Kupalo whines, low in his throat, to the feeling of Morozko sinking into him.

It’s so much. So much. Kupalo flashes between heat and ice, struggles to tamp down the fierce burning of the fire within him. When Morozko finally seats himself inside, Kupalo has arched away from the table. He can feel the lust in the room now, a heaviness that settles over them like lover’s flush, even as his core feeds upon it greedily.

“You’re warming,” Morozko says, disbelief on his tone. His hand lifts away from Kupalo’s chest, only to run across his bared skin and brush over his nipples, peaked in the coolness of the room. A distracted, hungry touch as he finally lets himself indulge. “Warming faster than I expected.”

Kupalo barely manages to stifle his groan. “Shut up, and _fuck_ me—”

The first thrust has Kupalo jolting; Morozko’s cock is thick inside him, nudges up against that sweet spot with startling accuracy. He hardly has time to process the old familiarity of the sensation, the newness of his vulnerability, before Morozko pushes one of his thighs to the side and slips in that barest bit deeper. This time, he can’t choke off the moan. It rings loud and clear in the cavern.

“More,” he pants, as pleasure winds into a tight ball in his groin. “Harder, anything, please—”

And Morozko gives him what he wants, finally; fucks into him with enough force that Kupalo loses his grip multiple times. Sweat slicks his body where it lies against the stone table—the _altar_ —and for a hysterical, wild moment, he wonders if Morozko might shove him right off of it. Then those strong, elegant hands come back to anchor him: long fingers entangle Kupalo’s own fingers, before pinning both hands back above his head with almost bruising weight, as Morozko fucks into him hard enough to shake a long, stuttered moan from his lips.

Climax hurtles out of nowhere, blindsides Kupalo—one minute he’s shaking in Morozko’s grip, then he’s coming with a muffled shout. Strength bursts through him in the same moment, so overwhelming that he almost misses Morozko’s quiet noise of completion.

For a moment, they pause. Breathing hard, with more slickness between them than there had been in the cavern the entire time preceding.

Kupalo burns inside. There’s no hiding it. His breaths are more steam than fog, skin warmed to its golden tan again. Heat soaks into his body, every inch of his physical form—he feels powerful again, uneasy vulnerability wiped away.

And yet it’s not enough to keep his disappointment at bay.

“I probably have energy to return to the aether now,” he says, once he’s caught his breath. “Thank you. I suppose that’s what you’d prefer for me to do—”

“And if I too, yield?”

The words startle Kupalo, make him turn his head in a sharp motion to stare. Morozko meets his gaze; there’s depth to them, this time tipped with something tentative, something resigned and full of longing all at once.

Kupalo knows full well that he won’t begrudge Morozko a moment’s weakness. Not when he feels the answering swell within himself.

“Kiss me, then,” Kupalo says breathlessly. “That’s all I ask, for now.”

Morozko does, and on it Kupalo tastes the wintery breeze, summer’s hot sting, and the tender sweetness of hope anew.

**Author's Note:**

> If of interest to anyone, I was inspired with the names of gods from Slavic mythology -- though I'll note that this has been a very liberal application of the source material (i.e., mostly name-borrowing).


End file.
